


P is for Promise

by chileancarmenere



Series: Alistair Alphabet [16]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:14:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chileancarmenere/pseuds/chileancarmenere





	P is for Promise

The bruises and burns from the battle for Denerim are still healing when Alistair decides it is time to go to Highever. When he tells Kaillian, she wraps her arms around his waist and tells him that she’s coming with him.

The trip to Highever is dangerous: it has only been a few short weeks since they slew the Archdemon and Anora was crowned queen, and Ferelden is still crawling with darkspawn. Alistair and Kaillian travel with a group of Redcliffe soldiers. They fight and slash their way across the countryside, saving who they can, closing the eyes of those that they were too late for.

When they reach the town, Alistair stops in the middle of the square, his chest tight. Duncan walked these streets, he knew every turn of the alleys. He bought bread from these vendors. He was born in one of these houses.

Kaillian watches him out of the corner of her eyes, but she doesn’t bother him. She takes control of their trip: she finds their lodgings, she goes out to buy them dinner. She leaves Alistair alone for as long as he needs it. While she sits downstairs talking with the soldiers and other guests at the inn, Alistair goes out and walks the streets of Highever in the cool evening air. He remembers having heard something about the ruling family of Highever, the Couslands, being betrayed by Howe, and walks around the castle grounds, but there isn’t much to see there. Whatever happened in these cold stone walls has been cleaned up very well.

A little further out from the town, there is a small grove of trees, standing out against the rocky hills that Highever nestles in. Alistair visits it and finds a small pool, which explains why the trees grow here. He kneels down beside it and takes a handful of the moist, cool earth. Duncan might have come here, as an adventurous child. Alistair tries and fails to picture Duncan as a tousle-headed boy; to him, Duncan is immutable, unchanging. He only sees the serious, black-haired, tall man who taught him how to navigate by the sun and stars.

The dirt falls through his fingers as his fist relaxes. Alistair reaches into a pouch on his belt and draws out a Warden signet ring, one that all Wardens carry so anything they write can be authenticated. He found it in the Warden compound, sitting on the side table in Duncan’s room. Alistair had fallen to his knees and wept in that room, stifling his sobs in the blankets of the neatly-made bed. Now, he scoops out a shallow impression in the ground and places the ring inside it, piling the earth back over it until it’s a tidy mound.

“I miss you,” he whispers to it. “I wish it wasn’t me here. Wish it was you.” He sighs and sits back on his heels.

“It’s gorgeous here. I can see why you liked it. Don’t worry, I made a promise. I’ll make sure you have a memorial here. Maybe a griffon.” He chuckles a bit to himself. “Well, maybe not. You never were fanciful.”

His throat clogs up with tears. “I’m sorry. I should have been beside you. I should have fought and died with you. We ended the Blight, I guess you know that, but it still feels hollow without you.”

Alistair sits beside the pool until it grows too dark for him to see properly, and then he returns to the inn. Kaillian embraces him and exclaims over how cold he is, but she can see that she didn’t get all of him back. Some part of him is still by the pool.


End file.
